


The Sonata

by d_sieya



Category: The Big Bang Theory
Genre: F/M, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-28
Updated: 2009-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-13 04:31:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/132906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d_sieya/pseuds/d_sieya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We bury our dead alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sonata

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2009 Paradox Holiday Swap on the prompt: “Zombie fic or end of the world fic where both Penny and Sheldon kick ass with guns or any P/S established relationship story.” Inspired by Schumann’s Piano Sonata No. 2 Op. 22.

It is hard to describe a melody.

It is one of those elusive things that the best poets can’t capture, that master artists can’t illuminate.

But Penny will try.

\---

“God, Sheldon, what the hell was so important that I had to come half—”

Sheldon grabs her by the wrist and pulls her into the office, eliciting a surprised squeak.

But she isn’t done, and rubbing her wrist, fixes him with a glare. “Euclid _and_ Las Robles are closed off so I had to—”

“Shh!”

“—I swear if you’re calling me here just to take you to the drugstore again I’ll—”

“ _Shhh_!”

“ _What_?”

A beat of silence, while he listens for something.

“Which street did you take on your way here?”

Wondering what the hell this has to do with anything, Penny answers, “I had to go _all_ the way up to Colorado.”

“And did you encounter anyone while walking to my office?”

“Sheldon, yeah, I walked past people in the halls, but this is a _university_ , what the hell does that have to do with any—”

“But none of them touched you.”

“No, Sheldon,” she says impatiently, “no one tried to ravage me in the hallways of CalTech. What can I say? Must be having an off day tod—”

“Come with me.”

In a very un-Sheldon-y manner he grabs her by the elbow like she is a misbehaving child and drags her out of his office. Pursing her lips at him because he didn’t let her finish her joke, she heaves her elbow back. “I can _walk_.”

Sheldon spares her one glance before he tries the doorknob to an office that has a plaque bearing the name ‘Dr. Robert Reynolds, PhD.’

“What’re you—” she says as he takes out a pin, inserting it deftly into the lock.

Of course Sheldon Cooper can pick locks. Of course. She should have known on the days she would wake up and her apartment was suspiciously tidier than she left it when she went to bed, even after taking away his spare key.

The door swings open.

“You wanna tell me why we’re breaking into Dr. Robert Reynolds’ office?” Penny asks as she follows him in.

“Yes,” he says. “This man is, as students like to say—” He clears his throat, which is more effective than actual air quotations for him. “—‘the crazy professor.’”

“I thought _you_ were the crazy professor.”

“Of course not, Penny,” he replies impatiently, dropping onto his knees and pulling a polished wooden box out from under a shelf. “As my level of thinking is on a higher plane than theirs, they simply do not understand my neurological processes.”

Penny’s sure that there is a joke in here _somewhere_ , but she can’t think of it when Sheldon picks the lock on the box and it swings open to reveal four guns. As in actual hand guns. The kind that kill people.

“Whoa, whoa, _hold_ on a second, why the hell does this man have guns?”

“Like I said, he is the crazy professor. Only a man bereaved by insanity would hide his firearms in such a conspicuous container.”

“Or, you know, in his office _at all_! At a _school_!”

“Do you know how to use this?” he asks. He holds the gun by the barrel out to her, indicating she should take it.

Penny forgets momentarily how weird this is, and fixes him with a look, and with as much Sheldon-y condescension that she can muster, says, “Sheldon.”

She grew up on a farm for Pete’s sake.

But when he hands her another one and picks up two for himself, digging around in the box for extra ammunition, her mind snaps back.

“You wanna—”

His voice is impatient as he says, “We’re _taking_ these, obviously, must I spell it out for you?”

“We broke into _the crazy professor’s office to steal his weapons_?!” Penny rages, approaching him to try to drag him the hell out of there before the insane guy comes back.

“Technically, I don’t think he’ll be needing them.”

Penny puts the gun—guns—on the desk, and grabs Sheldon by the wrists gingerly, as each of his hands still are holding the weapons.

“Sweetie. _What_. is. going. on. Why. are. you. freaking. out.”

He is looking out the window of the door, and looks back at her, as if he doesn’t have time for this.

“Will you pick these back up?” He tugs his arms away from her and stuffs the handguns into the waist of his plaid pants, picking up the ones she set down on the desk and thrusting them back at her. She fumbles them a little. “When you saw that Euclid and Las Robles and various other streets were closed, did you think it was for something mundane? Like _roadwork_?” He says ‘roadwork’ with the tone he usually reserves for saying things like ‘art majors’.

“Um, yeah, when there’s a big-ass sign that says ‘Closed For Roadwork’ any _normal_ person thinks, you know, that it’s closed for roadwork!”

“Oh, I forgot that you were merely normal,” he sneers.

“I hope you realize you just put a gun in my hand, Sheldon. You may want to be careful.”

“Yes, well, there was what they’re calling a ‘mishap’ in the biology lab. In actuality it’s a colossal disaster. It’s what happens when very stupid people do ‘science’.”

Penny ignores his obligatory ‘others are stupid and it makes me cry’ remark and focuses on what seems to be the crux of the matter: “Explain ‘colossal disaster’.”

“People died. Their hearts stopped working.”

Penny gasps, forgetting the weight of the gun. “That’s... horrible. How is it not—?”

“Their brain stems, however, didn’t,” he continues.

Penny stares at him, her head wrapping around this information.

“So, what, what does this mean? They’re twitchy? Or like what happens when you chop a head off a chicken?” Penny can see how that would be disconcerting.

“If ‘twitchy’ is redefined to mean ‘hungry’, and if headless chickens are known for their newfound aggression, then yes.”

Oh god. He’s finally snapped. He’s going to need a padded room now.

“Sheldon, put the gun down, you’re—”

“Penny, now is not the time to—”

“You _do_ realize what this sounds like, right? It sounds like you’re telling me that CalTech created Reavers.”

“Actually, Reavers are a) somewhat intelligent, b) not reanimated from dead bodies, but are, in fact, living, and last but not least, c) _obviously_ fictional—”

“ _How the hell do you even know_ —?”

Sheldon’s fingers close around her wrist like a lock and he drags her even after she digs her heels in.

“Stop—hauling—me—around!” Penny bites after she’s dragged into the hallway again. It’s empty except for them, and he looks around, his lanky limbs and lean back tense like a nervous horse. She uses this moment to twist her wrist away from him. “And stop acting so strange, listen, I’ll call L—”

“I’m not acting strange _ly_.” Leave it to him to correct her grammar. “I’m acting logically.” The way he looks at her as he says this, straight into her eye, with that quiet intensity he’s so very good at, sends her stomach into that realm of uncertainty. “In fact, if I do begin to act strangely, I advise you to shoot me here—” He touches her forehead at the point between her eyebrows. “—or here.” His fingers curl around her neck, and she feels him pressing two them to the point where her spine meets the back of her skull. Her stomach clenches again. “Now if you’ll follow me in a manner in which I do not have to touch you...”

He slams the door Dr. Robert Reynolds, PhD’s office, and it sounds like a gunshot.

\---  
 _so rasch wie möglich_  
\---

When Sheldon finds the piano, he doesn’t look like he believes what he’s looking at. The keys are littered with ash and rubble. The dark wood is almost gray with dust. The moon lights the floor through the ceiling and dances mockingly across the ivory.

 _Sheldon, let’s go_ , Penny urges, but he doesn’t. He approaches the instrument. Some ash flutters to the ground as his fingers disturb it.

Penny stomps up behind him, grabs his shoulder, and wheels him around, and repeats herself.

He turns his head toward the piano.

At his expression she lets her hand drop. She remembers that expression; it gazed down at her, one time, slightly taken aback, with barely concealed wonder, and Penny almost expects him to stare a split second longer at the piano and say, awkwardly, _Hello_.

Penny steps back, and Sheldon steps forward.

The seat is destroyed, so he drops to his knees in front of it, his elbows sticking out like they obviously aren’t supposed to but—Sheldon could make it work. She knows.

 _First movement_ , she hears him say. To her. He’s talking to her.

A single tone. Then a harmony: two keys, or three, or four, she’s not sure.

And then his left fingers fly, so fast it almost makes her dizzy. She sinks to her knees, then shifts onto her hip, leaning her head against the piano and feeling the vibrations. Straightens the gun on her lap, safety off, barrel pointed to where they entered.

She starts a bit as he moves from a tranquil if complicated harmony and pounds the keys with such strength the echoes bounce among the spare walls.

They’re safe. For now, she reflects, rubbing her upper arm, as the melody descends into nothingness and then the startling vibrations occur again.

His fingers slip over the keys, through the laughing moonlight, and, with the finality of a fanfare, they stop.

\---

The thing about the contamination is that people didn’t realize it was capable of spreading until it spread too far. And it is spreading _quickly_ , like typhus in a field hospital, massacring people who in turn massacre people who massacre people who massacre people...

Far from being helped, Pasadena is quarantined and its residents left to fend for themselves until it’s easy to pick off anything remaining and hostile.

Sheldon was there for the initial outbreak. So were Leonard, Raj, and Howard. The latter three went directly into the lab for a closer look and Sheldon, ever observant of safety regulations, stayed in the viewing area. So when the organic chemical exploded, covering and killing everyone in the lab, and subsequently bringing them back—

All she knows is the story, because Sheldon told her dispassionately and impatiently on their way off campus. Penny doesn’t know exactly how much it’s bothering him, having seen his friends die... and then un-die. And if she didn’t know him she would say it’s not bothering him at all. But she knows him, knows him probably better than anyone else on the planet, and she knows he’s more than capable of taking that emotion and placing it neatly in a clearly labeled box for later examination. His only problem is that no box is big enough or strong enough to contain something like that.

Penny just wants to know how big and bad he _thinks_ that box needs to be.

She also envies him for having the ability to even try.

“I’ve been observing them,” Sheldon says. They’re sitting in a tree one week after they day she met him at his office, and are hidden by leaves and branches and their own stillness.

Penny looks at him, the wood digging into her back, and blinks at him to acknowledge that she heard and is interested.

He nods at her, once, and looks back out to the world.

The zombies surround them, but they don’t know it, wandering around, snapping at anything that moves, that’s warm, fighting each other, men and women and children that were probably infected with a single bite in their desperation to get away.

“They’re ruled solely by reaction. They don’t think; they feed off of stimuli around them,” he says, bending his head to look around a branch. “I believe that they’re able to hear but they can’t process sound—at least subtle sound. A large explosion or a gunshot will certainly catch their attention, but if they don’t see us we can probably sneak by—”

“Sheldon,” she finally snaps. “What’s the point of sneaking by if they’re still going to be out there—”

“And what’s the point of picking them off from up here, as _you_ suggested, if the whole crowd will be drawn to the tree under us?” he snaps back. “If they see us they will _fixate_ on us until they can’t see us anymore, and—”

They argue a lot. They argue and tell each other they hate each other to bellow out their stress, but when it comes down to it Penny panics if he’s not in her direct line of sight, only feels a semblance of calm when she’s touching him, part of him, even the sole of his shoe as she is now, and she can tell that when he hovers behind her or drags her bodily away from a perceived hazard (despite her threatening to blow his brains out if he treats her like a sack of potatoes again), it’s his own Sheldon-y way of needing her.

It still doesn’t stop her from doing stupid things just to get him mad, like interrupting his tirade to shoot a zombie in the back of its head to spite him.

She instantly regrets it when over two dozen surrounding undead react instantly, their blank eyes glinting in the weak sunlight as they turn toward the tree in which Penny and Sheldon are hiding.

“Oops,” she says. He gives her a look that she knows means, ‘Look what you’ve done, you cretin, now I have to clean up this mess!’ “We have enough ammo!” she protests. At least she _thinks_ they have enough ammo.

The thing about zombies that’s most disconcerting is that it’s not like in the movies—they don’t shamble around in one mindless horde, easy to avoid at a brisk walk. They’re individuals, they attack like individuals, and, most startling, they can run and climb and punch and grasp with as much—perhaps more—strength as the living. The absolute best part? They’re not hindered by pain, or weakness, or exhaustion. Yeah, it’s a bitch.

The first time this happened Penny was greatly surprised to see that Sheldon is pretty damn good with a gun. (“Penny. I grew up in Texas and my father’s rifle collection was as much a part of the family as I was.”)

She’s still a little surprised every time he focuses down the sight of the pistol and one moment later something with black, dried blood around its mouth drops to the ground.

Gritting her teeth and furrowing her brow, Penny braces her knee against a V in the branch, points down at the oncoming crowd, waits a portion of a second, and then there’s a clean unbleeding hole through the forehead of a boy.

Gunshots clatter the air.

It is quickly and scarily becoming routine, until—

until—

until—

Penny almost vomits at the sight.

It’s Raj. It’s fucking Raj and he’s fucking down there, his eyes as blank as those around him.

“Sheldon,” she chokes, grasping wildly at his elbow.

Sheldon sees as soon as she says his name and falters, his face going pale. The both of them cease fire long enough for one to break off from the group and start scrambling up the trunk of the tree, and it gets far enough to grip at the seam of Sheldon’s pants, dragging and—

 _Bang! Bang! Bang!_

Not one, but three shots, wasting two bullets—but Penny doesn’t give a shit. _Don’t you fucking  
dare_, she thinks as the now disanimated body slides down the trunk, crumpling into a heap at the base of the tree, getting trod on as others struggled nearer.

 _Bang!_

Her eyes follow the line of Sheldon’s arm to the tip of his gun to the hole that is now in the head of what was once Raj’s body. And like the others it disappears into the mass.

At this point, Penny actually does vomit.

Instantly afterwards she tries to gather her wits back up, but there are odd flashes of light bursting behind her eyes. She snaps her gaze back over to Sheldon, who’s white as ash, his whole body shaking uncontrollably. He accidentally fires the gun, the bullet burying itself into the tree branch next to his thigh.

Penny lunges at him, almost losing balance but she manages to lock a knee around the tree limb and tears the gun from his fingers before he manages to hurt himself, jamming it between two branches.

She wraps her arm tightly around his shoulders with her left hand and, cursing repeatedly under her breath, uses her right hand to shoot bullets repeatedly at the crowd under her. Her mind is suddenly remarkably clear, and she makes the mark each time, trying to imagine them as, as rats or scorpions or something—just not a human body.

A few minutes later everything is quiet. She even hears birds.

“Are you—are you—” she gasps, taking in deep breaths of air as she tugs at his leg. The hem that the zombie took hold of is shredded, and she tears it upwards to see the skin underneath.

Uncut. Not even a scratch. Penny lets out a shaky breath of relief. Everything went so quickly she wasn’t able to tell if the thing bit Sheldon or just grabbed at him. Scratches wouldn’t have been so bad—the cut may have gotten mildly infected, but nails don’t contain the contaminant. Saliva does. Saliva definitely does. If it had laid a bite on his shin, she would have to shoot him now. He would ask her to.

She detaches herself from Sheldon. He is no longer shaking, but quiet, and staring ahead stoically. Penny thinks that he is more closed off than ever. Sighing, tugs the gun out from where she stuck it, and holds it out to him. “Here,” she says, sliding off of the branch and landing moments later on the wet grass, inches from a corpse. She doesn’t look at the massive pile of former people. She doesn’t want to see—see anyone she would recognize.

A small sound to her right tells her Sheldon dropped from the tree too. He is still silent, but doesn’t object when she takes his hand and pulls him away, trying to ignore that tickle in the back of her mind that tells her that Raj’s body is back there, her naive former self desiring to give him a proper burial.

 _I’m going_ , she thinks forcefully, Sheldon’s warm hand in hers, and they break out into a run.

\---  
 _andantino: getragen_  
\---

The next movement begins slowly, like the soundtrack to a rainy world.

It wanders around, almost hesitating, dipping forward and back. Penny turns her eyes upwards to watch him, and his fingers and arms are sure, crossing over keys and octaves with an art of which she didn’t know he was capable.

It is the calmest, most beautiful sound she thinks she’s ever heard. It also tears at her heart as viciously as the world around her, the world where people are dying, the world where people aren’t dying, the world where Sheldon is playing a sonata and Penny listens with a gun ready to fire.

The moonlight traces over his neck, his pale skin, under which blood races to and from his brain. She becomes weak as she studies him, wanting to lay her mouth against him, and she feels like something’s turning.

\---

It’s been a long long while since Penny’s been this dirty, and that story involves an irritable cow and a puddle of its digested food. And even then she got her brother to spray her down with a hose a few minutes after the fact.

This is definitely the first time Penny has been this _consistently_ dirty.

Her hair is limp, greasy, and hasn’t been washed in weeks. Her skin is shining with sweat. Oh, and she hasn’t shaved.

It’s a lot more surprising on Sheldon. He went from a man who showered twice daily and washed his hands as frequently as possible to being as filthy as she is. He hates being unshaven most of all—four days ago he found a razor still in its packaging and he made them both stop where some rainwater was gathered in a bowl so he could shave. It’s growing back, but he isn’t as furry as he was a week and a half before.

So when the two of them come upon large, filled, if nonfunctional, fountains in the gardens of the Huntington Library (most of which burned two weeks before), they look at each other and instantly know what they want.

“You may go first,” he says. “I’ll keep watch.”

For once Penny doesn’t argue, and makes her way to the fountain, stripping and laying her clothing where it won’t get wet. She’s not even worried about Sheldon being there. They’re the only humans in each other’s world at this point, and she trusts him like she’s never trusted anything—she’s far past the point of caring if he sees her naked. Stuff like that seems oddly silly.

The water is cool and clean and sends a pleasant shiver up her spine. She dips down into it, getting her hair wet and scrubbing at her scalp until it almost hurts. Then she starts working categorically from her face, to her neck, to her shoulders, to her underarms, to her arms, to her hands, her breasts and stomach and back—

It is some miracle that this moment remains quiet. Feeling satisfied, she stands and wrings out her hair, then takes her panties from her pile of clothing and decides to wash those as well. She can wear them wet, it’s not a huge deal.

A few minutes later she pulls them on and slips her bra back onto her shoulders, clasping it at the back. She will wait until she’s less dripping to pull her jeans, T-shirt, and jacket back on. It’s getting dark out, but it’s sometime midsummer so it’s not chilly.

“Sheldon,” she says.

He turns and looks at her.

The way he stares at her is not in lust. She knows that much. It’s not lust but it’s... something. She hasn’t seen it before, but it tugs at her, like she’s only heard about something like it through rough description.

Penny swallows.

“Your turn.” Her voice is raspy. After one more moment she steps fully out of the fountain, picks up the handgun, and waits.

She tries not to focus on the rustle of clothing as it drops onto the floor. She closes her eyes, begging herself to keep a lid on it. Then there’s small, gentle laps of water, the bright sound of splashes as he cleans himself.

Penny digs her toes into the grass, opening her eyes once she realizes how stupid it is of her to have closed them, and scans the area to make sure a zombie hasn’t noticed potential food washing itself up.

No. Clear.

She breathes in and out through her nose.

Finally she hears him get out, the rustle of clothing again and—

He’s buttoning his faded plaid pants, his torso tapering down to slim hips. A faint line of dark hair starts at his bellybutton, disappearing underneath the waistline of his pants. He was skinny before and he’s skinnier now, but much more wirey—a transformation the both of them have been through this past month or so.

He glances up from the button of his pants and looks back at her.

They stare at each other for a moment, in the waning sunlight, the moon getting brighter by the second, and on silent signal they approach each other.

Sheldon’s kiss is slow and sure and chaste but one part timid, as if he’s never done it before. Penny slides her fingers around his neck, up into his wet hair, holding him to her. His hands are at her lower back, playing at the hem of her underwear. She lowers into the grass and he follows her lead. They collide together again.

It is not desperate or frenzied. And it’s not about the sex. It’s a yearning not just for the human connection, because not any human would do, but for each other; a longing of Penny for Sheldon, Sheldon for Penny. It’s the stupidest thing they could have done, but by another miracle they’re left alone, naked under the glow of moonlight.

\---  
 _scherzo: sehr rasch und markiert: attacca_  
\---

The music is rapid and rhythmic, and Penny’s heart easily falls victim to its lead.

She closes her eyes and tries to absorb herself into the wood.

Tension and war sound out of the notes. Then the melody rests, builds up, plateaus, descends, like a row of trenches and battles.

Penny peeks to see that the keys, once so scattered with ash and debris, are almost now clear from Sheldon’s fingers traveling from note to note, brushing them to the floor, to her lap, to his shirt, to her hair. Rubbing at her arm absently, she sits up and stares at him.

He answers her unspoken question.

 _Third movement. One more_ , he says, and manages to send her a small glance at the side.

She sees the blue in his eyes, clear, and suddenly his face is taut with pain, with stress. Penny’s heart constricts, in excitement, in worry, she doesn’t know. She moves toward him, watching the moonlight stream across his skin—

\---

The moon is high when they make their way into the ruins of Huntington Library. It is halfway burned and it looks like no one has set foot in it for weeks. It is because of this that Sheldon surmises that they’d probably be the safest here, at least for the time being. Not anything living around to attract the dead’s attention.

Penny contemplates the gun in her hand, leaning against the wall across from a large landscape painting. She feels relaxed now, and by the look on his face—softer lines, lighter eyes—he feels the same.

“So how’d you know that that professor had all these guns and ammo, anyway?” she asks.

“He told me on one occasion that he did.”

“What—was he threatening to shoot you or something?”

He fixes an odd look on her. “Yes. How did you know?”

Penny manages a laugh. “Let’s find a room with a door and something to bar it with so we can get some sleep,” she says.

She pushes herself off of the wall, her jacket swinging from her left hand, her right hand idly holding the handgun, and she rounds the corner.

She doesn’t even see it. There is a cold, clammy grip on her upper arm and a sharp pain as nails dig in and break. Penny’s too surprised to scream, and instantly revolts against the hand, pulling backwards, but the moon catches its face and it descends at her arm, mouth open, lips cracked and bloody—

 _Bang! Bang! Bang!_

Three shots—two too many, bullets wasted. But the thing falls to the floor, and Penny leaps back, trembling, wheeling around to see Sheldon with his arm outstretched and gun pointed at the corpse.

Looking disgusted, he approaches it slowly, and then with another _bang_ there is one more neat hole right between where its eyebrows are.

Penny’s heart is racing, cold sweat breaking out on her forehead, neck, and chest. She’s gripping her upper arm.

“Did it—” he asks, and his voice is shaky.

“No. I mean—” She swallows. “It dug its nails in pretty deep, but I don’t think it bit me.” She raises her hand. There _is_ a cut there. Just barely. But Penny is sure that its teeth didn’t touch her arm. “No,” she repeats, feeling a little more confident. “It didn’t bite me. We’re good. I’m good.” Her jacket is still in her left hand, and after a moment’s thought she puts it on.

Sheldon’s about to respond but there’s another sound at the end of the hall. Running footsteps.

“Oh, fuck,” she says, and grabs his hand, and they tear along toward the opposite end of the hall. Penny looks back and fires off random shots. There is the sound of a stagger, and then the footsteps start up again.

They sprint along the halls, taking random turns, trying to lose it, to confuse it. Finally, they stop for air, and Penny doubles over, gasping. She can’t hear anything besides her heartbeat and their own breaths. “I think we lost it,” she says between breaths.

Then there is another sound. She can’t be sure where it’s from, above or below or near or far, but the both of them stop breathing.

“We’re not staying in this building,” Sheldon finally whispers. “Let’s go.”

They round the corner again, cautiously, then go through a doorway.

Most of the ceiling in this room is gone, letting in the moon and the stars. And on the opposite wall is a piano, covered in ash.

\---  
 _rondo presto: prestissimo: quasi cadenza_  
\---

The dichotomy of terror and innocence he is playing is a strange one.

Even though she is getting cold in the summer night, she shrugs off her jacket, letting it fall behind her, disturbing dust and errant ash. The melodic line into which he is diving is now so complicated that her brain almost can’t keep up. It does strange things to her heart though.

 _Sheldon_. She’s feeling weaker by the second.

His left hand travels down to the deepest octaves of the piano, creating a low, dark harmony.

Abruptly it slows down. Penny lets out a breath and lays a trembling, weak right hand on his hip.

Sheldon doesn’t acknowledge her save a slight shift of his head. The piano mourns under his manipulation.

 _Sheldon_ , she repeats, as the tempo picks up.

Her left hand rubs worriedly at her upper arm again.

Faster and faster and faster with harmonies and notes melding into each other, building onto each other, and she closes her eyes and absorbs it and—

—it stops. Discordant and final, it stops.

 _Sheldon. I’m feeling strange_ , she says. Instead of correction her grammar, with just his right hand, he begins another complicated melody. It travels up then down, and she leans into his shoulder, feeling his muscles under her jaw, and as left hand joins the keyboard once more he presses his head into hers.

She smells him. Almost tastes him.

Penny feels the song build and build and then— _daa, daa, duhhh_. It stops, an ending that begs applause.

They are silent with each other. She’s pressed along the length of his back, leaning into him, feeling how warm he is, watching the moonlight tease the bare ivory of the keys...

Then he turns, shuffling on his knees, and kisses her. This time it _is_ desperate, and she clings to him. His hand travels down the length of her right arm, then back up and—he breaks away.

Gently he lifts her arm. He knows where to look and examines the cut on her bicep.

It is shallow, barely a scratch, and it’s difficult to see by the light of the moon but the cut itself is raw and wet, the skin around it gray.

He doesn’t kiss it, but he kisses the skin above it, cool though it is. Penny can’t even bring herself to cry, but watches the bend of his neck, feeling oddly dizzy and cold.

 _Where_ , Sheldon asks.

 _I want to face you._ Penny doesn’t know if she thinks this or says this, but that doesn’t seem to make a difference with them: he picks his gun off the top of the piano and seemingly tests its weight.

At his hesitation she musters up a smirk. It brings focus back to his eyes. _I think you’ve fallen for me, Dr. Cooper._

 _That would appear to be the case._

 _Don’t you make me do this myself_ , she warns, fixing him with a look.

The barest of smirks touches his face and he lays his lips against the space between her eyebrows. He presses the barrel of the gun there.

One second passes.

\---  
\---  
 _coda_  
\---  
\---

The soldier squints in the sunlight as he rounds the corner, emerging from the shade of the building. He jumps backwards and curses when there’s a still figure standing right before him, and he aims his gun and—

Instead of lunging at his throat like the others did, this one points at him. It takes the soldier a minute to realize that he’s also pointing a gun.

After a moment, the both of them relax.

The man is pale and his front is spattered with blood, most likely not his own. The soldier realizes why he thought for a moment that he was one of _them_ ; the way his eyes look, those don’t belong on a living person.

“Scared me there. You wouldn’t believe—” The man gives him a look. “—sorry, guess you’d believe more’n anybody what I’ve seen today.” There is a pause as the soldier glances around the area. It’s littered with bodies, and in the distance there is a large building, most of it burned away. “You alone?” the soldier asks the man.

There is another pause.

“Yes. Yes, I’m alone,” he answers.


End file.
